Beauty Marked
"Beauty Marked" is the thirty-fourth episode of the TV series Danny Phantom. Sam enters her school's beauty pageant to display her utter disgust for it, only for her to be crowned the winner. Little does she realize this is all a ploy from Dora the Dragon Ghost to find a wife for her arrogant brother, Prince Aragon. Episode Recap A school assembly takes place where a beautiful woman named Dora Mattingly (sporting a light blue dress and an oversized ring) hosts the "Miss Teenage Happy Princess Beauty Pageant", which disgusts Sam. Dora needs to pick out an "average" boy to judge the pagenant. Elsewhere, Danny busies himself with a battle with a medieval Ax Ghost executioner, The Headsman. He ties Danny by the legs from his rope and drags him on stage where Danny quickly turns human. Dora immediately spots him and makes him the judge for the pageant, all the while as a Dark Prince watches from his crystal ball. As a result of his new status as pageant judge, all the girls in Casper High suck up to him (giving him cookies, doing his homework, etc.), something Dash is not too pleased with (to which Danny sends the girls after him), but Tucker is, seeing as he can date any girls he desires as he is the "judge's best friend". Whilst checking Tucker's PDA list of pagenant entries, Danny and Tucker are surprised to spot Sam listed as a candidate, something the entire student body is also in total shock at. Sam however expresses she merely joined to make a statement of disgust towards it. Later, Sam and the other girls are getting trained and ready for the pageant while Danny fights The Headsman ghost once more. Sam's skills to be an elegant girl doesn't bode well for Dora, eventually accidentally stepping on Dora's foot, causing her to temporary display a fit of anger, showcasing a quick dose of a lizard-like tongue and red eyes. Sam notices this and speaks to Danny about it, but he's unfortunately too into the pageant judge position to seemingly care, letting her know he'll deal with it after his popularity goes out. His ghost sense then appears and a medieval Archer Ghost approaches. Danny does battle with him until he is flung back, the Archer Ghost flying off. Danny (now human) decides something needs to be done...as soon as the pageant is over. Meanwhile, Dora (now revealed as Dora the Dragon Ghost girl) sees all this from her giant ring (which protects her from Danny by covering up her status as a ghost so his ghost sense won't go off when nearby), using the Headsman and Archer ghosts as further distraction. However, her brother, the Dark Prince, is rather angry with her due to that one mishap where she almost revealed her identity as a ghost when her foot was stepped on. Dora begs for his forgiveness while Sam watches all this from afar. The night of the pageant arrives where Sam tries to tell Danny about Dora's true nature. However he is interrupted when both the Ax and Archer ghosts come down to further distract him. Sam tries to make her escape, but Dora pushes her on stage, her anger causing her to revert to her dragon ghost self for a temporal moment. Danny meanwhile manages to escape from the two ghosts (who fly off when the clock strikes eight), and heads over to judge the pageant. After a number of contestants, Sam arrives and uses her talent of Goth Haiku to warn Danny that Dora is a ghost. After getting that note, Lancer asks if he has chosen a winner. Not listening to what he said and only concerned for Sam, he cries out her name, inadvertently declaring her the winner. Dora places a tiara on Sam's head, sending both girls to the Ghost Zone where Dora's brother announces he has chosen a bride: Sam herself. Sam is being prepped for Dora's brother (now revealed as Prince Aragon). As much as she tries to, Sam cannot escape the castle (the tiara refuses to let her nor will it leave her head) and cries out to Dora on his mistreatment of women. Dora sadly explains that is how things work in his lair where time has stopped to that of the Dark Ages and later reveals his desire to possess what no ghosts possess: a human wife, so it is why Dora chose Danny, a half-ghost, to pick out a suitable bride for her brother. After Dora leaves, Sam decides to take matters into her own hands to get herself out with a variant of a poison pill scheme. Meanwhile, all the girls from the pageant angrily storm towards the boy's restroom, trying to get Danny out. Dash and his team of bullies enter the restroom to soundly beat him up, but finds him missing. Danny and Tucker manage to escape, riding the Specter Speeder inside the Ghost Zone where they managed to detect Sam from the machine. Heading inside Aragon's lair, the Specter Speeder completely dies on them, technology not working on the Dark Ages time period there. Back inside Aragon's castle, he asks for his bride to come to which Sam does, dressed like a goth princess and acting in a slobbish manner (to the cheers of the other ghosts around), much to Aragon's displeasure. Meanwhile, Danny and Tucker does battle with the Headsman and Archer Ghosts once more. Without technology, Tucker relies instead on chucking his PDA towards said ghosts while Danny handles things the usual way. By the time Sam has done rough housing around and looking bad in the eyes of her future husband, Aragon has already blamed his sister and sends the guards to surround Sam. He goes to remove her tiara as she is unfit to wed, but then she is dragged away by Danny and Tucker (dressed as a knight and archer respectfully) who has come to rescue her (to which Sam cries her she was doing fine till they came). Aragon, angry, takes "his bride" back to which Dora nervously asks why he wants her back. Aragon slowly turns into his dragon form as he insults his sister further by brutally reminding her she is never to think. Danny attacks Aragon while Tucker plugs his nose by throwing PDA like arrows from a bow. Aragon manages to fly out of the castle, however, shoots out the PDAs, then sets the entire forest surrounding the castle on fire. As Danny fights the chauvinistic Aragon, Sam tries to convince Dora to stop getting pushed around, Dora countering that is not how princesses act. Sam however lets her know they possess the same level of power and with that added confidence, Dora removes the tiara from Sam and gives in to her anger at her brother, changing into her dragon form. Danny and Aragon are evenly matched until Aragon smashes Danny to the ground, causing him to get knocked unconscious. Luckily, Danny wakes up and is saved when Dora (with Sam riding on her) comes over and commences to attack Aragon, taking her anger out on him and his mistreatment for the past 1600 years. Danny takes this time to remove the pendant that turns Aragon into a dragon as well as apology to Sam for acting the same way as Aragon did when it came to women. Now a normal ghost, Aragon faces the presences of his sister who manages to put the flames out as well as move the clouds so time moves forward instead of getting stuck. With that fixed, Danny flies Tucker and Sam home. Back in the pageant, all the girls surround Danny, angry for his choice on picking Sam, however he states he has not officially declared a winner. The girls then await for his results, but Danny still ends up picking her. Sam is a bit shocked, then claims the pageant is still stupid. She leaves with Danny to go to the Nasty Burger, leaving Tucker alone to fend off the angry teenage girls. Cast David Kaufman as Danny Rickey D'Shon Collins as Tucker Grey Delisle as Sam, Ashley Ron Perlman as Lancer Dee Bradley Baker as Prince Aragon, Scanner Voice Maria Canals Barrera as Paulina Tara Strong as Star Susanna Blakeslee as Dora Mattingly Scott Bullock as Dash Allusions * Title: A beauty mark is a dark, facial mole that - if placed properly - is considered attractive. * In this episode, the prince's name is Aragon. This may be a reference to the Inheritance trilogy, a popular series by Christopher Paolini, where Eragon is a dragon-riding swordsman (This link is later enforced when Dora transforms into a blue, Saphira-like dragon with Sam riding astride her back). Incidentally, his name is also similar to that of Aragorn from the "Lord of the Rings" book trilogy. Also, since Aragon is a place in Spain, his name may be a reference to Catherine of Aragon, one of the six wives of Henry VIII. * The glass slippers Sam tries on are identical to the ones wore by Disney's Cinderella. Dora's human appearance also looks similar to that Cinderella's "princess look". * Aragon in dragon form looks just like that of Maleficent in the Disney version of Sleeping Beauty. Trivia/Goof *When Danny remerges after the ax ghost slices him his eyes shortly flicker. * Although Danny claims he never could split himself up like Vlad, when fighting the axe-weilding ghost he splits in two to avoid being cut in half, but he dosen't pay it any mind and the halves fuse together. This may have been a reflex *In the next episode, "King Tuck", Star and Paulina again chase Tucker away during the ending. Coincidently, both episodes focus on a friend of Danny's becoming royalty (Sam as a princess; Tucker as a pharaoh). *When Aragon throws a rock at Danny, his ghost self is intangible, but since he is in the ghostzone he should have been hit. *Although Sam's hair is only chin-length, it's impossibly long when she puts it in ponytails. *For this episode, she wears fake vampire fangs when she auditions for the pageant. *Dora says that Aragon has been picking on her for 1600 years, but seeing as this episode is set in 2006, 1600 years ago would be the fourth century. That's 200 (or 600 with the Dark Ages) years earlier than the Medieval times. The Knights are dressed in 14th century armor and the clothes that they wore and the others in their realm are that of the 13th century. So when are Dora and Aragon from? Dora could simply exaggerated in a fit of anger. *While this episode focuses on both Medieval times and the Dark Ages, with fairy tale references, the theme of the episode revolves around the patriarchal beliefs, chauvinism and misogyny that are attatched. For instance, Danny, Tucker, and the other characters, except Sam, think females are only to be demure, beautiful, and not speak their own minds. Prince Aragon is even purely chauvinistic, believing that women, especially princesses, are not to think but to do as they are told. Sam, however, finds such shallow thoughts unacceptable and that all girls and women have the ability to think for themselves. And it's this that gives Dora the chance to stand up to her brother and change the history in their realm for the better. Danny, himself, becomes involved with seeing females as more than pretty faces and, during his fight against Aragon, he finally accepts Sam's ideals about seeing them as for who they are. *When the girls were practicing balancing a book on their heads, Sam was reading one of the books, and when she bumped into one of the girls, they fall kinda like dominos, which is somewhat similar to the Three Stooges slapstick comedy, where the foil accidentally wrecks something. *Sam makes Paulina's eye makeup look simaliar like Ember's. It doesn't really make sense that Paulina got upset with Sam considering she'd fallen under Ember's spell before. *For the first time in the show, the actor behind Spectra and Ember, Tara Strong, now voices Star. *When [Paulina and Star decide who gets to "claw [[|Tucker|Tucker's]] eyes out" and perform Rock, Paper, Scissors, Paulina wins, but Star starts chasing Tucker. Category:Episodes Category:Season Two Episodes Category:Episodes focusing on Sam Category:Episodes containing one-shot villains